A Bit of Pew Pew #10

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Having taken on Don’s Whisper/RAC build twice and coming out victorious, I was feeling pretty good about things. But I needed to try it against something else to see if it was a one-trick squad.

So for my one game this week (I’m finding it helps me focus and I’m not getting home at silly o’clock), timing aligned so that I could play against my buddy Phil. Now the thing about Phil is that we all take the mickey out of him because he can’t roll an evade to save his life. It’s his thing, but with the list he brought he was mitigating it to a fair degree. Fistful of Dice is holding an OT tournament soon, and his list reflects that.

Bloody Biggs! He’s a bit of a git. I haven’t faced many A-Wings, so it was interesting straight away. Snap Shot is new to me too. Phil explained how it worked, and I promptly forgot. A very different list to Whisper/RAC, with much more agility. A good test.

Phil gave me the initiative so I set Zeta fairly central so I could react to him with my PS9’s. He gave himself a lot of space to burst out into so I went more central. The plan here was to slow roll, then maybe come in and take out the front ship.

Phil zoomed out and I kept my powder dry. The TIEs are looking to turn in for that front A-Wing. If I could get there at multiple angles his squad will have to pick something, at which point I can get behind or get stuck in and ruin the formation.

I hated where Rexlar ended up on this turn. Everyone bar him, the big hitter, could fire at that front ship. I considered barrel rolling but the old rule came into play. When it doubt…focus. Still managed to chip away a bit here. Biggs can regen which is a pain but he’s also the biggest hitter with lower agility so him getting shot at isn’t a big problem. No Snap Shots this round…they’re time would come!

Snap Shot kicked in with some style, making Scourge a goner (changes will be made as he’s done nothing three games in a row), whilst the squads met and formed a right cluster near the centre of the board. Rexlar uses the patented ‘Defender 4K’ to position himself nicely whilst Zeta doesn’t care which way the fights goes. Mithel gets an awesome 4 red attack in, chipping the shields off the A-Wing. I’ll always love that, a TIE hitting far harder than it should.

From this point the game took a turn, as Mithel and the Zeta took a battering. Phil lost an A-Wing whilst his other ships had been chipped at.

This left me in the precarious position of having a Defender with two shields against two A-Wings and a T-65. Phil seemed pretty confident I’d wrap things up at this point, with Rexlar’s hit points, 4K, and TIE/D looking strong. I’ve lost too many games of X-Wing to get ahead of myself, so despite knowing that the Defender could do it, I played things down, knowing I’d have to judge my positioning against 3 arcs and still make sure to get some hits in.

To cut a longer story short, Rexlar did do the business. He took out the A-Wings in subsequent rounds, which left him with full health against an X-Wing that was trying to regen. A high PS, TIE/D Defender in a joust with an X-Wing isn’t a particularly fair fight, and after a couple of rounds of positioning he got the job done.

This was a great game. Phil is always good fun to play against. As much as I give him grief for his dice rolling he’s a decent player so to get a win felt good, and gave me further confidence in the idea of this build. The Snap Shot A’s were a curious thing. End up in front of them, like I did a few times, and those additional two reds coming your way can make things interesting, especially as it’s before you can do an action. Biggs is Biggs. He soaked up from shots and R2 kept him in longer than I thought possible. The problem was that once the A-Wing’s were out of the picture he couldn’t regen enough. I’ve only come up against Rebel regen a couple of times and I’ve realised what’s needed – overwhelming force. Lesson learnt for the future!

He did wreck my Zeta too…

That game was a week ago, and I was giving thought to how I’d amend it through the week. Scourge was in and out several times. I wasn’t making amazing flight choices with him, so couldn’t use the ability. Holding him back so that he has hull to hit could be a plan. In the end however I decided to drop him for an Academy TIE. The points saved there allowed me to bump the Zeta up to a kitted out VI Backdraft. Mauler and Rexlar are the core of this team so I feel OK tinkering around them.

I was bored last weekend and found my paint. So I added a splash of colour.

So the next night at Fisfull rolls around, and it was an odd evening. I had a midwife appointment to attend with my wife first (all good), and then needed dinner, so I knew I wouldn’t be at the shop until later in the evening. Then I found out that Wave 11 had come out! Not sure how that had passed me by but it was a nice surprise. As it was pay day the next day I thought I’d treat myself to a Scurgg and an Aggressor. I nearly busted the bomber out to use, but I couldn’t figure out what to do and Mauler/Rexlar was still enjoyable. So with this possibly being my last week of X-Wing for a little while I stuck with it.

This piece has become a lot longer than I originally planned so I won’t go into huge detail about it. I have to say that it’s bloody lovely to see X-Wings and TIE Fighters against each other! Always looks really cool. Stephen lined up with Wes, Wedge, and Luke, as he is also practicing for the OT tournament. High PS would provide a slightly different challenge for me.

He lined up centrally, whilst I took the right hand side, hoping to pick off an X-Wing from the flank. I did manage to start attacking before all three X’s were able to shoot back. Fortunately Wes didn’t really get to use his ability, though Wedge did.

We soon got into a cluster around the central rocks, and the Academy stepped up. Coming from a more central start, he did what he needed to do, blocking lanes and obvious routes. Not many shots but he did his job amazingly. The others came in and hit hard. The X’s did too to be fair, with Mithel going down quite early. Backdraft went down too, but not before I’d managed to twice get him firing R1 shots from his from both the front and rear arcs! Pretty sweet when that comes off. He’s a nicer option than the Zeta (which wasn’t bad).

All of a sudden Stephen pointed out that all 3 of his ships had 1 hull each. I hadn’t taken any notice and assumed they were better off. Rexlar then took them on whilst the Academy interfered.

Previous articles and you guys have helped me find this squad. So thank you. I’ve swapped things around but it’s now 4/4 against three different lists. It’s a shame I’m not going to be able to play much, but the squad will still be there when I come back. Time for a different adventure! Unless the little one is late of course! Then perhaps there’ll be a Pew Pew #9.

By the way everyone, I need a name for this squad. Names have never been a strong suit of mine. If you’ve got a suggestion I’d love to hear it! Keep flying casual and enjoy Wave 11!